Peru Itinerary Input
Hi all,
I have an unfortunately short 6 day vacation in November so I'm trying to make the best of it. Day 1: Arrive CUZ at 10:30AM Either ollaytambo or take the train straight to aguas calientes Day 2: Machu Picchu, cusco at night Day 3: Cusco Day 4: Puno Day 5: Colca Canyon - Arequipa Day 6: Fly to LIM and check out the city, return at night to depart My Questions are: Anyone recommend a good bus/tour company for going from cusco-puno-arequipa? Do I have to buy tickets for machu picchu online or can I buy it at the gate? Any tips in general? Where to exchange money? Thanks in advance! |
My opinion is that you are trying to see way too much in too short a time. You'll be spending most of your vacation on busses. If I recall, the bus from Cusco to Puno is 6 hours. The bus from Puno to Colca Canyon is another 4-5 hours and the bus to Arequipa is 5 hours. So on your last 2 days you'd spend 15 hours on busses.
With only 6 days, I would concentrate on Cusco, MP, Sacred Valley and Lima. Cusco and the Sacred Valley area are beautiful and deserve 4-5 days, which would leave a day for Lima. Plan to go back and see Colca Canyon some other trip when you have time to hike into the canyon or stay at one of the villages nearby for a few days. And Arequipa is also worth a day or so. |
Originally Posted by vandykes44
(Post 25501395)
My opinion is that you are trying to see way too much in too short a time...
...I would concentrate on Cusco, MP, Sacred Valley and Lima. Agreed. Puno is nice but ehh--not important enough to include in your particular itin. The same with el Colca. With only 6 days, I would encourage you to do 3-4 days in Cusco and 2-3 days in Lima. Getting back to Lima is easier; for Cusco, on the other hand, take as much time as possible and really enjoy. |
i decided Puno over Colca, but I have 10 days. Titicaca is something a schoolboy reads about in Geography and dreams of going to.... but agreed, best stick to Sacred Valley & Manchu Piccu.
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You can buy Machu Picchu tickets in Aguas Calientes rather than at the gate but there a limited number of tickets that are sold for each day. We purchased our tickets on line before departing to Peru since we were visiting during a busy time and wanted to climb Huayna Picchu as well. The ticketing website is run by the Peruvian government and it is a two step process that requires you to first reserve your ticket and then pay for it in the second step. We also made reservations on the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes to make sure we would not get stuck in Aguas Calientes for an extra night ... again we were there during high season.
Based on your short itinerary with only one day/night near Machu Picchu you probably want to stay in Aguas Calientes so that you can spend as much time as possible at Machu Picchu during your visit day rather than sitting on the train for a couple of hours from Ollantaytambo in the morning. We used the ATM in the baggage claim area at the Lima airport to "exchange" money; we tend to to use that method as our bank does not charge us any ATM fees and you get competitive exchange rates at ATMs. I agree with the other replies that you should limit your visit to Lima, Cusco, and the Sacred Valley. Although not in this order, we spent an afternoon in Lima, a day in Cusco, a day around Cusco and a couple of days seeing the Sacred Valley - aside from Machu Picchu we really enjoyed Moray, the salt mines (Salinas de Maras), and the towns in the valley (Pisac, Ollantaytambo). We added Puno/Lake Titicaca in our trip that lasted 9 days and flew from Cusco to Puno. After two nights in Puno with one day on the lake that we really enjoyed we flew from Puno back to Lima and connected to our return flight. Our friends spend another 3 days in the country and drove to Colca Canyon/Arequipa from Puno which took somewhere around 5 hours. |
Peru Itinerary Input
In Lima I did a bike tour, SkyKitchen cooking class and Water Fountain park over three days but you could do all in one day as the flights tend to be quite late back to the US. I have info on my philatravelgirl blog.
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What about my itinerary?
We're going to Peru in a month!
Day 1: Arrive Lima 7pm Day 2: Hang out in Lima for a morning, 3pm flight to CUZ Day 3: Train to Machu Picchu Pueblo 8:30am; MP in the afternoon Day 4: MP in the morning and climb up Huyana Picchu. 3pm train to CUZ Days 5-6: Cusco Day 7: Cusco in the morning; train to Puno Day 8: Puno/Titicaca Day 9: Puno, then fly to Lima Day 10: Lima Day 11: Return to US What do you all think of this? We're not enamored of Puno or Titicaca, so open to other ideas for those days. Also, any suggestions on where to stay in Lima? |
Originally Posted by gfunkdave
(Post 25530115)
We're going to Peru in a month!
Day 1: Arrive Lima 7pm Day 2: Hang out in Lima for a morning, 3pm flight to CUZ Day 3: Train to Machu Picchu Pueblo 8:30am; MP in the afternoon Day 4: MP in the morning and climb up Huyana Picchu. 3pm train to CUZ Days 5-6: Cusco Day 7: Cusco in the morning; train to Puno Day 8: Puno/Titicaca Day 9: Puno, then fly to Lima Day 10: Lima Day 11: Return to US What do you all think of this? We're not enamored of Puno or Titicaca, so open to other ideas for those days. Also, any suggestions on where to stay in Lima? As an alternative to Lake Titicaca, consider taking the train from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo and spend 2 days in the Sacred Valley. Ollantaytambo and Urubamba are good base locations to explore several Mayan ruins (Ollantaytambo, Pisac, Moray), salt mines, local markets (Pisac), and rest up a bit. You can then continue to Cusco and complete days 5-6 of your current itinerary before flying back to Lima. From an altitude acclimatization perspective this may help as Machu Picchu is at about 6,000 feet, the Sacred Valley at about 9,000 feet, and Cusco at 11,000 feet. We enjoyed Lake Titicaca and spent one day seeing the floating islands as well as Taquile but Puno was nothing special ... we did feel the altitude here as you find yourself above 13,000 feet. Any hotel in the Miraflores area of Lima will work. We have stayed at the Hilton and the Doubletree (using points each time) and had good but not necessarily memorable stays. On a side note, the Marriott in Cusco is one of our favorite hotels in the world, great location, great architecture, and fantastic service. |
We hiked Huayna Picchu at the 10a slot and had 3:48p train last month. Here's our timeline:
At gate before 10a to line up 10:08a passed gate with signature 11:20a very very top 12:30p back at gate ~1:00p at entrance to use bathroom and buy coke The line for the bus was fairly long, even if it did move. We cheated a bit with one person waiting in line, two going to use bathrooms and buy drinks 1:40p get on bus 2:05p back in town Our 3:48p Vistadome started boarding at 3:18p (it does take a while to board, as passports are checked), and we arranged our hotel to deliver our bags at 3p. So, we still had 45 minutes for lunch and coffee at the train station. We were not fast hiker, but we also didn't waste too much time here and there. If your train departs closer to 3p, you need to budget time carefully if your Huayna Picchu ticket is for 10a. In fact, our Inca Trail guide did mention to us we should get back to main entrance by 1p for bus for our 3:48p train. Maybe he was a bit cautious, but we'd rather be safe than sorry. --- I also want to mention Lima hotels. We arrived from HKG after about 30 hours at 7am, and flew out at 10a next morning. We wanted to sleep and visited historic center and not some new parts of town or the waterfront. So, despite knowing all its issues, we chose the Gran Hotel Bolivar at Plaza San Martin. I will just say that I did not regret the decision. |
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